to support us.”
Craig loved to talk about his work, but no-one else in the village shared his interest and he never met anyone else. Or rarely, so whenever anyone showed the slightest interest, he tended to go over the top, as he was now. Lek tried to maintain a level of interest, but she had no idea what he was talking about.
“Darling, you know me. I care about people: my family and my friends, I know nothing about machines and computers. It just goes in this ear and out that one, but nothing sticks. I am stupid, I have no education. I never go high school and never go to university. My mother not have money to send me. That is why I want Soom to go. I don’t want her stupid like me, I want her clever like you.”
It always broke his heart to hear her talking about herself like that.
“You went back to school a few years ago, didn’t you? I thought that was for high school.”
“Yes, now, at the age of forty, I can prove that I am as clever as a sixteen-year-year old. Great! I am still twenty-four years behind. Do you think anyone wants to give a job to a forty year old woman with the brain of a sixteen-year-old? No, I am on the scrap heap. I am even not fit enough to work in the rice fields like women half my age again. My Mum is sixty-er, er... something and she can still work in the fields all day if she has to, but I would not last one hour and you would not last ten minutes.”
She started laughing at the thought of him planting or cutting rice by hand. She found the mental image of Craig up to his ankles in mud hilarious. “I am sorry,” she said with a hand before her mouth, “but when I think of you..., you standing in sloppy mud planting rice, complaining about your bad back and wanting a cold beer because there is no shade... Oh, my Buddha. You are very funny. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
“You working with all the old ladies and they are working faster than you and you complaining and wanting a chair, a beer and an umbrella in the wet rice field... Oh, my Buddha.”
It was nice to see her laugh again. She touched his hand, clinked glasses and put hers to her lips. At the last moment she had to put the glass down again as another mental image caused a laughing fit.
“Oh, I must tell my Mum later! I will tell her that you want to help her in the field next time, but she must take a chair and some beer for you.” And she was laughing again. Craig didn’t mind in the slightest being the butt of her jokes – anything to see her laugh again, He wished she would do it every day.
“Oh, Lek, that money we borrowed from Billy in Barry. I had forgotten all about it. Had you? Anyway, I sent it back to him by PayPal today and thanked him very much. He pulled us out of the shit there big time, didn’t he?”
“Yes. How stupid we were. I liked Billy the first time we met him in O’Brien’s. And the other guys we used to sit with on market day when it was freezing cold outside... Look at the time, Soom will be thinking that I have forgotten her.”
At six o’clock Lek always phoned her daughter. It was their designated time; it was the time she should be arriving in her bedsit from university or ‘school’ as Craig called it. Lek would never demean such a respected establishment of higher education with the word ‘school’, although she had respect for schools in their place. She realised that Craig could be so flippant about university because he had attended one and familiarity breeds contempt, as they say, but she didn’t like him using that term when referring to Soom’s university.
Lek looked forward to phoning Soom every day, so took up her mobile and rang her.
“Hello, where are you now?” - the standard greeting - “Have you eaten yet? Good... Are you well? How did university go today? Good.... Good. Me? I’m fine. Yes, he’s all right too. He’s sitting here with me now, drinking beer. Soom says ‘Hello’. He says ‘Hello to you too’. What are you going to do tonight? Yes, that’s right... Do your homework, read a bit, watch TV for a while and then early to bed
“Tomorrow is another day. You want to be fit and bright for every day in university. You have worked hard to get there, now you have to work hard to stay there. You will do that, I know you will..
“OK, yes, OK. Phone me if you need anything at any time of the night or day. We are well, don’t worry about us. Gran is fine too. She sends her love. Yes, OK, thank you. We miss you too. Bye-bye for now. Bye...
“That was Soom. She says she misses us... and you. I mean including you. She is doing well though. I miss her too. I want to go down to see her. Maybe stay with her for a few days, what do you think?”
“If you stay with her in her bedsit, then I can’t go. That’s what I think, but I don’t mind, if you want to go on your own. I can survive here alone, on my own, with absolutely no-one to talk to for two days, if that is what you want.
“I know how much you miss her. I don’t mind, really! I’m only joking with you. Look, it’s, er, Tuesday today, so why don’t you go down on Friday morning, stay the weekend while she’s off school and comeback on Monday morning?”
“University, dear. Soom finished school last year – nearly eighteen months ago. She does go in on Saturday morning for private lessons, but that is a good suggestion of yours. OK, I’ll book a seat in the minibus and leave on Friday. Thank you for understanding, darling.” She cupped her mouth and whispered the words ‘I love you. Choop, choop.’ “You would only be bored in Bangkok anyway. It’s no good you coming, is it?”
It was true that Craig did not like big cities, but he said, “Yeah, right! I’d be bored rigid what with all those bars, girls, strip joints, A-Go-Go bars and everything. I mean... you get too much of that around here.... Enough to last a man a lifetime.”
Lek thought he was joking, but even after eight years, she was rarely completely sure. They both had such different senses of humour and Thai humour was different from the British variety anyway. Probably Asian was different to European in general. So she put on a weak smile and studied his face.
“Only joking. I’m happy for you to go and I’m happy to stay here. All alone, while you’re out going everywhere in Bangkok. Boring old Bangkok. While I live in up in Baan Suay, the only place I’ve ever lived without a pub.”
Now she knew he was joking. Maybe speaking the truth in jest, but that was his way. He didn’t mind her going and didn’t mind staying at home.
“OK, thank you my dear. I’ll let Soom have a shower and then ring her with the good news. I am really looking forward to it. Isn’t it exciting? We haven’t been separated for more than a few hours for eight years.”
He had had his little joke, so he didn’t push his luck. He just smiled back at her. He was wondering if he could get his friend Murray to come around and take him out in the car. He had never explored the local village ‘bars’ – if there were any.
Just as Lek was about to phone her daughter, Nong came running out.
“Lek! Lek! There has been an accident. Mrs. Ng just told me that a petrol tanker has knocked two local ladies off their motorcycle in the lane. One is dead and the other has less than a ten percent chance of pulling through. Who is it?”
“Oh, how awful! But how would I know? I’ve been sitting here for the last hour.” She told Craig about the accident.”
“But no-one knows who they are?”
“I think some people know, but we
